Rick Kahler's Financial Awakenings

My office currently has a position open for a CFP professional. Recruiters tell me the biggest obstacle I have in recruiting someone is “Rapid City, SD.” One told me recently that all interest in this position evaporates when she tells them where they must move. ”People think Rapid City is on the edge of the Arctic Circle.”

Such a view of Rapid City is really as inaccurate as it is unfortunate.

As a kid, I always wondered why Santa Claus never ate the cookies and milk we left for him. A few years ago, a physics teacher friend explained why. Here is a repeat of the column I wrote based on his information.

Tradition tells us Santa visits every child around the world on Christmas Eve. Now, understand that Santa’s Christmas Eve is 36 hours long.

Last Thanksgiving our Eastern Mediterranean cruise was cancelled the night before we were to leave due to a case of the chicken pox.  We rescheduled the same trip for this Thanksgiving and crossed our fingers. At least we knew, if anything stopped us, it would not be the chicken pox.

When Ted and I found out our speech to the 2007 Financial Planning Association convention was scheduled on a Tuesday morning after the convention closed, we were a bit concerned that anyone would show up.  We were therefore delighted that our session was filled to capacity and we were able to communicate our latest information on integrated financial planning to 300 attendees.

Yes, it is true. Rick and Marcia are going to jail. Somebody (maybe you, my former friend? J) turned us in. Marcia was busted for “reckless window shopping”, and Rick was busted for “his crackberry addiction and too much yoga”.
We are going to “jail” on September 19th to raise money for the March of Dimes Jail & Bail. Each of us has to raise $1,000 in order to post bail.

A former Irish partner of mine was fond of calling life’s various adventures, “an experience in living.” Well, I had a new experience in living this weekend. An approaching thunderstorm was said to have quarter-sized hail.  I quickly moved our vehicles into the garage and told the kids to pick up any toys they didn’t want damaged. My wife declined my offer to move her potted flower plants inside saying, “Oh, they’ll be fine.

  In May, Rick attended the 26th annual Financial Planning Association Retreat, where the top 1% of the nation’s financial planners gather to hone their skills. At least, that’s the story Rick tells. He’s just never told us exactly which skills he’s honing.

We’ve received some candid photos from an unnamed source that may provide some clues.

Make no mistake, Rick enjoys the many aspects of his life, and balancing his time between family, KFG clients, and speaking engagements is a challenge. 

Rick’s recent speaking tour was a study in efficient time use.

I asked London to tell me something about her third book. “This book is the final book in the white filly series. It is where Karen gets up one morning to find that someone had stolen Sonya. Karen gathers up her friends and go’s out on a mission to get her back.

We’ve been deluged with calls wondering what happened to our weekly podcast and webcast that accompanied the weekly column. OK, “deluged” is pushing it, we’ve had three calls! Unfortunately, our Pinnacle software stopped working about a month ago and my typically saavy tech team is stumped.